Top Warzone Analyst Chapter 36

Cheng Feng thought Shen Dan was about to get into a fight, but she just stood there with her head lowered.

A few seconds later, several messages popped up in the world channel.

Love and Peace: You think you’re all that? Your movement is a jerky, start-stop mess, like you’re rushing through a dance at a graveside funeral. I told you to circle east, but you insisted on heading west to score some scriptures. Bullets are landing at your feet, and you’re still standing there like a fool staring at the sky. Even the president’s sweet little darling couldn’t act as clueless as you.

Love and Peace: Done your three daily self-reflections today? What’s your shooting accuracy? What’s your movement reaction speed? What’s your weapon-switching frequency? You’ve been using the same gear setup the whole time. With driving skills like yours, do you even need hands? A couple of randomly flailing sticks would be more agile than you. Any mech designer seeing your performance would want to take an axe to your control console.

Love and Peace: And you’re dragging my name into it to deflect from how bad you are? Do you really think your pride deserves that?

The other person, stunned speechless by her rant, couldn’t type out anything coherent for a long while. His rebuttal was pathetically weak. “Your trash gameplay needs me to drag your name into it?! Do you even have any shame?!”

Being humiliated by a terrible data analyst is one of the worst things in the world.

You know she’s worse than you, but you just can’t beat her.

If the argument continued, she would start pulling up data, posting GIFs, showing all the evidence that would make your heart sink.

This world just isn’t worth it.

Shen Dan, having achieved a complete victory, raised a hand to tidy her hair and said with a straight face, “See? They just like to spread rumors, and they’re especially dense. If you don’t spell it out plainly, they simply can’t understand what you’re saying. Honestly, if they had fought the way I told them to, the team could have won. It’s a pity they’re just too bad.”

Cheng Feng was a bit skeptical and secretly checked her match history.

Since it was a new account, there were only three recorded matches. However, they had arrived at the computer lab at the same time. Cheng Feng had just taken a little longer with the registration process because she wasn’t familiar with it. And in that short amount of time, Shen Dan had honorably achieved a record of three consecutive losses.

Shen Dan said, “You probably don’t quite understand the dynamics of the San Yao network ecosystem. Since we’re all classmates, let me explain it to you.”

…

The Infantry department’s simulation training lasted a grueling four and a half hours.

Just past the halfway point, the legends of these two manual operated mecha pilots from Command Class B had already begun circulating on San Yao.

Jiang Linxia, having gotten a taste of the gossip, shared it with his brothers in surprise.

What’s Good About Summer: [Image] @everyone

A Little More Reckless: Your dad’s here? Who’s this? Looks like they’re asking for a beating.

My Family’s Got a Mine: Don’t waste time on freshmen. Go open a bounty on the official site yourself.

Xiang Yunjian: No need to share this kind of idiot.

What’s Good About Summer: This is your good little daughter.

Xiang Yunjian: ??

A Little More Reckless: Definitely taught by Jiang Linxia.

My Family’s Got a Mine: Xia Jianglin’s gone too far, she’s just a kid!

What’s Good About Summer: Damn! Screw you guys!

What’s Good About Summer: Cheng Feng’s only been with the instructor for one day and she’s already been corrupted. Is there something seriously wrong with UFU’s system? What are they even teaching?

What’s Good About Summer: And right now, she’s still training with Shen Dan. [Worried]

A Little More Reckless: That name sounds kinda familiar.

What’s Good About Summer: It’s that top scorer who’s never even won a single match in the noob zone, gets publicly shamed every now and then, but was still admitted to UFU with the highest score!

My Family’s Got a Mine: Oh–I remember now.

What Shen Dan was actually most famous for wasn’t her terrible skill – after all, the rookie zone was packed with awful players. But she was the only one who, amid a torrent of abuse from opponents, would clap back by posting her UFU acceptance letter to shut them up.

Because her tone was so arrogant, everyone assumed she had gotten into the Manual Operations Department. Shocked and appalled, they furiously hammered UFU’s official account, lamenting that one of the Alliance’s top universities had sunk so low!

And also said they wanted to apply too.

Due to the overwhelming number of netizens petitioning, which seriously disrupted backend operations, the official authorities had to release the admissions list early, proving that Shen Dan had actually gotten into the Command Department.

In a concluding announcement, they also carefully burst everyone’s bubble: Shen Dan’s level of manual operated piloting wasn’t even qualified to take the computer-based test.

And thus, Shen Dan became famous overnight.

At that time, an obscure post was bumped back up on the San Yao forum.

[How should one latch onto the thigh of a Class B badass? What kind of sidekicks do these alpha types usually like?]

The latest hot replies were:

“Putting myself in Shen Dan’s shoes… I’m about to become an unfilial son.”

“How can you acknowledge the enemy as your father?”

“The freshmen at UFU this year can’t escape. After all, Shen Dan is the top scorer. You’re going to be dominated by her for four years.”

Netizens felt conflicted.

On one hand, they were relieved that UFU was innocent. On the other hand, they realized that the noob was actually a deputy commander, and they couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt whenever they wanted to trash-talk in the future.

What’s Good About Summer: I heard she injured her hand in a fight and couldn’t participate in this year’s freshman competition.

Xiang Yunjian: Is this one of those “I heard Cheng Feng is actually a distant relative of the UFU president” kinds of hearsay?

What’s Good About Summer: Yes.

Xiang Yunjian: Okay. Good.

Xiang Yunjian and the others hadn’t officially started their classes yet, and since they were free recently, they decided to log into San Yao to check out the situation.

By this time, Cheng Feng was already in her fourth match. Xiang Yunjian spotted her in the crowd and noticed that she didn’t look very happy at all; in fact, she had a rather grim and pained expression on her face.

During the mid-match break, she stood in a corner of the activity hall, dawdling and refusing to click the start button. First, she fidgeted with the buttons on her pocket, then she checked the angle of her collar. Her restless movements betrayed her intense internal struggle.

Shen Dan, on the other hand, stood beside her, passionately trash-talking with netizens, her spirits high and eager for more matches.

After a short breather, Cheng Feng accepted the challenge anyway, and a new round began again.

Xiang Yunjian chose to spectate, and he quickly figured out what was going on.

To be fair, Shen Dan’s hand speed was quite fast. But as it turned out, being good at data analysis didn’t necessarily mean one could pilot a mecha well; the code bases for the two fields didn’t overlap at all.

Shen Dan’s biggest problem was her lack of sufficient combat awareness, which resulted in sluggish action speed. Although her countermeasures were correct, it was like playing with an 8x speed delay. By the time she had finished her analysis and started to counter the last wave of attacks, the opponents had already moved on to the next phase, leaving her swings hitting nothing but air.

When things got dangerous and there was no time to analyze data, she would just “go with her gut.”

With both of them using manual operated mecha, Shen Dan’s system seemed infected with some major virus, forcing Cheng Feng to single-handedly carry the entire match.

If Shen Dan had just been a peaceful sidekick, it might have been tolerable. The problem was, her level of engagement in the battle was quite high.

During combat, Shen Dan seemed to activate a second personality, one that was extremely enthusiastic.

To provide cover for Cheng Feng, she would make her mech leap left and right across the map, even attempting to sacrifice herself multiple times to save their damage output. The result, however, was that she severely disrupted Cheng Feng’s rhythm and field of vision.

Cheng Feng was walking on eggshells. On the verge of tilting, she couldn’t help but subtly turn her cannon towards her teammate, only to turn it back under the pull of her conscience.

Xiang Yunjian could almost picture Cheng Feng’s little face all tense, muttering under her breath about Shen Dan.

Cheng Feng held grudges.

He opened Cheng Feng’s match history and scanned through it, surprised to find that although the girl was fighting an uphill battle, she had so far maintained a perfect winning record.

And most of them were chaotic

Netizens had already witnessed this scene many times, yet they still couldn’t help but feel a pang of sourness.

“Shen Dan makes me feel like I could do it too if I got the chance. The new twin stars of manual operated mecha: one is definitely Cheng Feng, and the other could be me.”

“Cheng Feng is indeed strong, still managing to triumph while carrying a 60kg paperweight.”

“Even a paperweight has dreams! [With emphasis]”

“Cheng Feng, fly free and don’t worry! Mom’s support system is already built!”

“You guys are no match. You don’t know how hard our sister works. Her strongest point isn’t actually her skill, it’s her willpower, okay? She has to overcome the deep shame and embarrassment within her heart just to stand on this stage and talk big to netizens.”

Shen Dan spotted that comment and took a moment to reply: “Why overcome shame? If a military university student doesn’t even have that bit of mental fortitude, they might as well change careers now.”

Netizens were left speechless.

With what kind of mindset could she possibly say something like that, holding such a record?

Under repeated stimulation, the wisdom of the people suddenly awakened.

“Hold on, didn’t Shen Dan get into the Command Department? So why is she training with the Infantry department students now?”

“Damn! A word wakes the dreamer! @United Federation University, your student is openly skipping class, please punish her severely.”

“@United Federation University, can you just ban her account? San Yao is the root of all evil, it’ll only distract her from her studies! Save the child!”

No one was really in charge of it, but UFU itself very much wanted to be.

The manual operated mecha instructor, watching in front of the screen, clutched his chest, his emotions a complex mix.

One was a future pillar of the Manual Operations Department, the other a devastating landslide of mud and rock. Feelings of relief and deep sorrow coexisted within him. Terrified that Cheng Feng might be corrupted, he found himself unsure whether to call fate fair or unfair.

Five minutes later, Shen Dan’s crazy bumper car game came to a smooth end thanks to Cheng Feng’s steady performance.

Several people were teleported out of the instance, and a burst of enthusiastic applause erupted in the activity square. The person in question, however, walked towards a corner with her hands in her pockets, her expression solemn.

The barrier to entry for manual operated mecha was too high, and the discipline had long been in decline. Cheng Feng’s performance this afternoon could only be described as dazzling, almost single-handedly resetting netizens’ long-held perceptions of manual operated mecha.

But as the matches went on, Cheng Feng herself, and even some of her opponents, began to notice a problem.

The database Cheng Feng had studied was over a decade old. Subsequent mech structural updates had rendered some of the code obsolete. This caused her mech to occasionally exhibit some strange movements.

To ensure safety, her playstyle had to lean towards the conservative, and her offensive and defensive patterns became monotonous.

In just two short hours of training, perhaps because her meteoric rise had been so spectacular, she had already attracted the attention of some professionals who were systematically analyzing her. In the later matches, Cheng Feng could clearly sense that she was being targeted.

Shen Dan also had a habit of dragging her into multiplayer matches, forcing her already unfortunate robot to operate under overload.

Cheng Feng, for her part, felt too embarrassed to directly tell her: You’re terrible, I want to play high-level matches to learn.

This was her comrade! She should be tolerant.

“You’re really amazing, you’re the first person who could actually carry me and help me rank up! See, communication really is better with someone from the Command Department.” Shen Dan was completely oblivious to Cheng Feng’s passive-aggressive state. Today was the most glorious day of her life; the consecutive victories swept away all her previous dejection. She said regretfully, “If the Infantry Department’s score requirements weren’t so high, I would have gone to the Manual Operations Department too.”

Cheng Feng didn’t respond.

Shen Dan calculated the time and added, “We still have two more hours. I think if we speed up a bit, we can grind our way to 15 wins!”

Cheng Feng was in despair. “Ah…”

Shen Dan asked, “What’s wrong?”

Cheng Feng’s mind was filled with that emoticon of a face covered in black lines.

…

Xiang Yunjian was standing on the periphery of the crowd, about to go over and say hello, when his message panel lit up with a pitiful plea for help from Cheng Feng.

Ye Guicheng: Save me.

Ye Guicheng: [Gritting teeth, enduring]

Xiang Yunjian found it quite amusing.

Xiang Yunjian: Got it.

Not long after, a striking message flashed across the full screen.

[Loudspeaker] Xiang Yunjian: @Ye Guicheng, Big shot, carry me.

“??”

“Xiang Yunjian, have you no shame.”

“Exploiting child labor is illegal, my friends.”

Cheng Feng, feeling as if she had received a pardon, immediately rejected Shen Dan’s ready request and said, “I have to go. I need to go carry him.”

Shen Dan pulled up Xiang Yunjian’s backend data and said, puzzled, “He doesn’t need you to carry him, right?”

Cheng Feng said, “He’s got a hold on me.”